Should the atomic bombs been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[Spicy meatball]

..and?. The nuclear radiation from the big bomb actually caused defects to the children of survivors.

...and? So the Japanese of Hiroshima and Nagasaki get special treatment for the pains they had to endure? What of the millions of people worldwide who had to deal with their own deformities. What of the children who had to grow up with their own disfigurements, or the mental scars the war put on them? How many children, I wonder, felt ashamed when they learned that their father was a Soviet soldier who raped their mother? If they even learned? What of those children who were never born because their mothers committed suicide instead of bear their rapist's child? The war affected many more children than those of Hiroshima's citizens.

Stop treating the bombings as separate events from the other atrocities of the war. They were indeed the worst "atrocity/terror act" that the U.S. committed, but they still (and will always) pale in comparison to what happened in the rest of the world for years before (and after) August of 1945.

It's like the local news reporting on a school bus overturning. It is sad that that children died in the crash, but it should be put in perspective against the children in the rest of the world who die for far worse reasons, and go unreported. The greatest school bus disaster of the decade is nothing next to the inhumanity of regions like Darfur.

You treat people as numbers, that is very wrong.

No its not, its an evolutionary imperative. hundreds/thousands or more people have died during the life span of this thread. we only care about people we know and have a vested interest. its selfish sure, but wrong? no its how we work. Besides how else do you propose we measure these kind of events if not from a death toll?

 

[Baonec]

I don't agree with it personally I see it as if a child in school dropped a table on my foot breaking a toe I then took a Glock in the next day to make an example of him.

 

[Dragonearl]

It was all a big joke, just downright experimentation is what the attacks were all about. There was just no need for the allies to push the war at that point, japan had lost its navy the allies had complete air dominance the actual threat from japan was about zero. its a chain of volcanic islands with little or no oil/coal/metal they had to use whales as a power source

the war could of eventually been ended diplomatically , but the Americans didn't want that. after the horror of the battle of iwo jima they knew just how much it would cost to take all the other islands and the mainland through conventional methods. Nukes ultimately killed a lot less people military (on the homse side) than a conventional war would of cost. It may have been a necessary thing to do at the time but it sure wasn't the right thing to do.

The Americans and indeed Europeans had over 100 years of contact with japan before this conflict more than enough was known of their beliefs and culture. the offers of a diplomatic ending the Americans offered were obvious ploys guaranteed to failure and used to legitimize further actions. interestingly its still a tactic the western nations use to wage imperialistic wars.

The use of strategic nukes on a predominant civilian centers is abhorrent, as I've said before but alas, war tends to be like that. Is there a real difference between using strategic and tactical weapons? not to the victims i'm sure but I think there is on the intent of the user.

The Americans weren't looking to end the war with the least loss of life. They were preparing for the next phase of economic and cultural imperialism, lets not forget the almost total eradication of Japanese culture that happened after the war as the US rebuilt her in its own image. They also wanted a base of operation in range of the soviets.

There is one small possibility that some good actually came out of the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it showed the world what these weapons would do, if that in any way was part of preventing the 3rd world war it was worth it. the fission based bombs used were tiny things only half a megaton each iirc. at the height of the cold war both sides had warheads up to and exceeding 700 megaton fusion based which is a whole magnitude of destruction worse. just try and imagine the destruction a device 1400 times more powerful dropped in their thousands would of caused.

I find it interesting that whenever WW2 is discussed its always (in comparison) small events that are discussed and always in the second half of the war past the point where loss was ever really possible. The actual war was fought and won from Poland to Moscow and Stalingrad at the cost of an estimated 28 million soviets 16/12 civilian/military

 

[Sarukin]

By Hardcore_Gamer

So you would rather invade and start fighting that would have killed far greater number people then the atomic bombs did? Well aren't you smart......

Allot of you people here simply fail to grasp the fact that if America had NOT dropped the bomb then normal fighting that would have continued as a result of that would have killed many times more people (both American and Japanese) then the Atomic bombs ever would have. So anyone saying that using the bomb was wrong and that America should be ashamed of it self has no idea what he or she is saying.

Not to mention that the Japanese were offered to surrender after the first bomb was dropped, but instead they said no, so the dropping of the second bomb is entirely Japans own fault.

I completely disagree with you, if the Americans wanted to show off their "Fuck you" bombs then they could of hit the rest of the Japanese fleet, or a Military base (you know sort of like what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbour, just sink a couple of US Navy ships), not two civilian cities with NO MILITARY VALUE what-so-ever, what made me sick about the bombings is that the Americans flown some bombers over the cites before the nukes so that the air raid warning would go off, they dropped the 'Fat Man' bomb as soon as all the bunkers gave it an all clear to leave, thus maxiumizing civilian casualties.

No, this was a horrid inhumane thing to do and is nothing to be proud of or for some idiot to try and make a weak excuse like this one.

 

[Dele]

I completely disagree with you, if the Americans wanted to show off their "Fuck you" bombs then they could of hit the rest of the Japanese fleet, or a Military base (you know sort of like what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbour, just sink a couple of US Navy ships), not two civilian cities with NO MILITARY VALUE what-so-ever, what made me sick about the bombings is that the Americans flown some bombers over the cites before the nukes so that the air raid warning would go off, they dropped the 'Fat Man' bomb as soon as all the bunkers gave it an all clear to leave, thus maxiumizing civilian casualties.

No, this was a horrid inhumane thing to do and is nothing to be proud of or for some idiot to try and make a weak excuse like this one.

Nukes dont work well against ships and those cities had a lot of military value.
Get your facts straight.

 

[PersianLlama]

This was a crime against humanity on a massive scale.

No consideraton was taken of the innocent civilians that were killed by the bombs. This is by definition a war crime.

It's digusting and the US should be ashamed of these actions for the rest of its existence. Given that the US is the ONLY country in the world that have used Weapons of Mass Destruction in a conflict directly against civilians shows what a destructive force it is in the world.

The US lost all moral ground to criticise human rights violations the second that bomb was dropped. This was compounded by the McCarthy trials, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war and the War on Terror. As a result the US has done more damage to the cause of human rights ever since than any third world dictatorship could.

It is nearly impossible for the UN and international criminal court to bring any meaningful action against the atrocities carried out in the third world because without treating the US the in the same way their actions are somewhat hypocritical.

However, the UN and Criminal court should do more to condemn the US. They should also issue a warrant for the arrests of those in the US involved in torture, George Bush and Tony Blair for blatant disregard of the Geneva Convention. Even if they would not be able to follow through with the trial the issuing of a warrant would be a damning condemnation and hugely daming to these criminals.

That's my opinion.

I really don't quite see the justification in killing that many people, especially since most of them were civilians.

 

[Sarukin]

Ladies and gentlemen. This was war. War is not won by being nice. War is won by "The patient, systematic and total application of overwhelming force".

Give me a break. It's cisses like you who stop the west from winning it's wars properly.

Winning wars properly? sure, next time we are in a war i'm sure your 'kill everyone in that fucking country' approach will work.

Lets face facts, even though Japan has their Honour over death policy the Emperor of Japan wasn't stupid, he knew that Japan was beaten and that they would not last much longer against the Americans and the Yanks bloody well knew this to, YES envading Japan would have cost lives but I think people are over exagerating when they said more people would die than having the bombs dropped.
Japan didn't even have much of an army left, the IJN Yamato died fighting the most of the US fleet, the Americans took Okinawa and Iwo-Jima, they were within spitting distence from taking Tokyo and capturing the Emperor himself, the nukes was just overkill.

 

[xecutioner]

This was a crime against humanity on a massive scale.

No consideraton was taken of the innocent civilians that were killed by the bombs. This is by definition a war crime.

It's digusting and the US should be ashamed of these actions for the rest of its existence. Given that the US is the ONLY country in the world that have used Weapons of Mass Destruction in a conflict directly against civilians shows what a destructive force it is in the world.

The US lost all moral ground to criticise human rights violations the second that bomb was dropped. This was compounded by the McCarthy trials, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war and the War on Terror. As a result the US has done more damage to the cause of human rights ever since than any third world dictatorship could.

It is nearly impossible for the UN and international criminal court to bring any meaningful action against the atrocities carried out in the third world because without treating the US the in the same way their actions are somewhat hypocritical.

However, the UN and Criminal court should do more to condemn the US. They should also issue a warrant for the arrests of those in the US involved in torture, George Bush and Tony Blair for blatant disregard of the Geneva Convention. Even if they would not be able to follow through with the trial the issuing of a warrant would be a damning condemnation and hugely daming to these criminals.

Ok, we discussed this multiple times in class and yes, by all means, was there a neccesity to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima. The estimated death toll was 1 million americans had an invasion occurred. In the pacific for nearly every 10 japanese casualties there was one american casualty so in otherwords depending on how long it would take for them to surreneder, 10 million casualties maybe? And had we not dropped the nukes we would have continued the firebombing raids killing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS more japanese weekly. So yes it was needed.

 

[DestroytheTyrant]

no .
and Japan shouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbour

 

[Sarukin]

I completely disagree with you, if the Americans wanted to show off their "Fuck you" bombs then they could of hit the rest of the Japanese fleet, or a Military base (you know sort of like what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbour, just sink a couple of US Navy ships), not two civilian cities with NO MILITARY VALUE what-so-ever, what made me sick about the bombings is that the Americans flown some bombers over the cites before the nukes so that the air raid warning would go off, they dropped the 'Fat Man' bomb as soon as all the bunkers gave it an all clear to leave, thus maxiumizing civilian casualties.

No, this was a horrid inhumane thing to do and is nothing to be proud of or for some idiot to try and make a weak excuse like this one.

Nukes dont work well against ships and those cities had a lot of military value.
Get your facts straight.

first, i don't see why it wouldn't work, the nukes had that fancy "Air-burst" mechanic in them, that would of vaporised the IJN fleet.
plus, Hiroshima was a MINOR (as in NOT major) supply and logistics base for the Japanese military, thats hardly a statigic target, so you need to get your facts straight.
I'll give it to you that Nagasaki had one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan so in had value, but still not worth nuking.

 

[Dele]

first, i don't see why it wouldn't work, the nukes had that fancy "Air-burst" mechanic in them, that would of vaporised the IJN fleet.
plus, Hiroshima was a MINOR (as in NOT major) supply and logistics base for the Japanese military, thats hardly a statigic target, so you need to get your facts straight.
I'll give it to you that Nagasaki had one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan so in had value, but still not worth nuking.

Test on Bikini [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq76-1.htm]. Sure it sinks a few ships in case of near-direct hit and causes the ships to be radioactive for a while but surely you dont go waste your nukes for so patchetic results. There is absolutely no psychological effect involved when firing at ships. Also I find your claim about Hiroshima weird as it had headquarters for the whole defense of southern Japan and had many other purposes such as communication center, storage and some industry. It must have been a pain to reorganize after such loss.

 

[Max Lazer]

Okay...to (again) make sure you all understand clearly: if a city has a target of military value, it ceases to be a civilian target. It is now a military target with civilians nearby or in it. It's that simple.

Oh, and in war, people are numbers. The death of millions is a statistic, remember?

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

Yes they should have. I would advocate dropping them on the Middle East if it wasn't for the fact that the fallout would float over to our friends in Israel.

 

[oralloy]

The Allies demanded Japan's unconditional surrender. They refused.

And once again, to quote the report:

"Japan would have surrendered even if atom bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs did not defeat Japan, nor by the testimony of the leaders who ended the war did they persuade Japan to accept unconditional surrender."

Ok, now here's the thing. Japan didn't want unconditional surrender. They wanted to retain the figurehead of their Emperor. That was all. It was described by the governments own reports as "a formality" in Japanese surrender requests going back for two years before the bombings. ~TWO YEARS~ Regardless, we could have pushed for it or not, but the fact of the matter is we didn't need to do anything to achieve "unconditional surrender."

The bombings were unnecessary on any grounds. Any grounds at all. Even to prevent invasion.

Trouble is, the surrender requests didn't go back two years before the bombs.

The first surrender request came the day after the second bomb.

Because one man thought we didn't need to invade or bomb. Also, hindsight is 20-20. He knew after the war that the Japanese were at their breaking point, but the facade they put up during the war gave an air of determination. At the time we thought it would become a guerrilla war on the Japanese mainland resulting in a tactical quagmire. It just turned out to be a bluff.

One man? Eisenhower!? HA! Do you even have a clue what you're talking about. Hindsight!? THIS IS WHAT WE KNEW AT THE TIME.

Ike was indeed one man.

And "at the time" we actually had no idea what it would take to force Japan to surrender.

And the Strategic Bombing Survey was put together by an entire team. It is the governments definitive account of areal bombardment in WWII.

Actually, it was a report put together by people in the Air Force to try to argue that conventional bombing alone was all that was needed to win wars now. They were trying to maximize the defense budget of the Air Force in an era where defense budgets were being radically slashed.

And some sort of tough guy facade caused us to bomb?? We had unobstructed access to the entire island. No one shot at our planes anymore!!!! They were beaten.

That would have been news to the bomber crews who were still being shot at over Japan.

According the the US's own report, yes.

Can people read my posts? Am I actually saying things? Hello?

The orgional report is at:

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm

Japan would have surrendered even if atom bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs did not defeat Japan, nor by the testimony of the leaders who ended the war did they persuade Japan to accept unconditional surrender.

Recommend people read the entirety of the section which the quote was taken, Japan's Struggle to End the War, in addition to the Foreword

Again, hindsight is 20/20, and the report was able to study and generate their findings with information available after the fact. The orders to proceed with the bombing was made with the information available to Truman at the time.

Thank you for telling people to read this. However, the fact is, this is not hindsight, but a culmination of the information we had at the time.

No, it is hindsight. It was written after the war had ended.

We had cracked the Japanese code by this point and we were watching the events described unfold in real time. More than that, we had been receiving, and rejecting, peace overtures from Japan from 43' on.

No, the first peace overture we received from Japan came after both A-bombs had been dropped.

I'd like to point out that your sources were written after the war. This is hindsight and that's the end of it. We knew later that most of them were unwilling to fight but at the time we thought that some or most of mainland japan would fight us out of Japanese solidarity and desire for an honorable death. We didn't know most of this at the time. For all we knew it was between killing a quarter million of their civilians in an instant or killing most of their civilians in the streets while losing our forces while staring at the Soviet Union and it's love of converting other nations. If nothing else, we had to keep our forces strong in case of a red invasion and this had the dual effect of scaring them as well. Of course they developed their own weapons so maybe it wasn't a good idea but hindsight is 20-20.

The sources ~collimated~ information after the war, but everything you read in that report, we knew at the time. Once again, we had cracked the Japanese code. We knew they had no infrastructure to fight with. We knew that they would not fight because their leadership was imploding. We knew that all we had to do to end it, was say that they could keep a figurehead leader, or do nothing at all!

No, the report (which doesn't deserve to be on the pedestal you seem to have placed it on to begin with) is based on things that we did not know before Japan surrendered.

The first inkling we had that Japan was about to surrender came when they first asked to surrender, which they only did after both A-bombs had been dropped.

 

[USSR]

This was a crime against humanity on a massive scale.

No consideraton was taken of the innocent civilians that were killed by the bombs. This is by definition a war crime.

It's digusting and the US should be ashamed of these actions for the rest of its existence. Given that the US is the ONLY country in the world that have used Weapons of Mass Destruction in a conflict directly against civilians shows what a destructive force it is in the world.

The US lost all moral ground to criticise human rights violations the second that bomb was dropped. This was compounded by the McCarthy trials, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war and the War on Terror. As a result the US has done more damage to the cause of human rights ever since than any third world dictatorship could.

It is nearly impossible for the UN and international criminal court to bring any meaningful action against the atrocities carried out in the third world because without treating the US the in the same way their actions are somewhat hypocritical.

However, the UN and Criminal court should do more to condemn the US. They should also issue a warrant for the arrests of those in the US involved in torture, George Bush and Tony Blair for blatant disregard of the Geneva Convention. Even if they would not be able to follow through with the trial the issuing of a warrant would be a damning condemnation and hugely daming to these criminals.

Hahaha..

Obviously you don't realize that when it comes to war, no matter what standards are set, there are no rules, no morals, and no conscience.

If you think is such thing as a polite war, I'm sorry, but that has yet to happen.

And no consideration was taken before the bomb dropped? Ah so we did this out of pure pleasure =D

No -.-, we killed them to save about 10X more of humanity that would have been killed if the war had continued. I'm not saying we should be thanked, praised, given respect for this horrible act, but the US is not to receive the full blame. Japan resides in about half of the blame for this tragedy.


They killed our soldiers, innocent people, and bombed Pearl Harbor thus intentionally starting a war. We, in return, bombed their cities.

An eye for an eye may not seem exactly fair, but as I said, In war..there are no morals

(Please also note that I am not intentionally singling you out, just adding to the topic as well. Please don't be offended if I insulted you in any manner.)

 

[Epic_Rocker]

It was a war crime if you ask me.

So no it shouldn't have.

So you would rather invade and start fighting that would have killed far greater number people then the atomic bombs did? Well aren't you smart......

Who the fuck said that was the only other option?

I just said I thought it was the wrong thing to do!

Beddo said it better than I could...

This was a crime against humanity on a massive scale.

No consideraton was taken of the innocent civilians that were killed by the bombs. This is by definition a war crime.

It's digusting and the US should be ashamed of these actions for the rest of its existence. Given that the US is the ONLY country in the world that have used Weapons of Mass Destruction in a conflict directly against civilians shows what a destructive force it is in the world.

The US lost all moral ground to criticise human rights violations the second that bomb was dropped. This was compounded by the McCarthy trials, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war and the War on Terror. As a result the US has done more damage to the cause of human rights ever since than any third world dictatorship could.

It is nearly impossible for the UN and international criminal court to bring any meaningful action against the atrocities carried out in the third world because without treating the US the in the same way their actions are somewhat hypocritical.

However, the UN and Criminal court should do more to condemn the US. They should also issue a warrant for the arrests of those in the US involved in torture, George Bush and Tony Blair for blatant disregard of the Geneva Convention. Even if they would not be able to follow through with the trial the issuing of a warrant would be a damning condemnation and hugely daming to these criminals.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm amazed the US is even allowed to be a part of the UN after that. Maybe it's because they're like the friendless child who's stronger then everyone and forces his way into the group? xO Idk. Just a huge war crime commited there.

 

[Spicy meatball]

Okay...to (again) make sure you all understand clearly: if a city has a target of military value, it ceases to be a civilian target. It is now a military target with civilians nearby or in it. It's that simple.

Oh, and in war, people are numbers. The death of millions is a statistic, remember?

How does a city stop being a civilian target? especially when the city is full of civilians?. Most of the remaining people here will likely disagree with me when I say this, but whatever. World War 2 was one of the very few conflicts in human history where there was a morally right and morally wrong side. I'm not a cultural relativist, because I don't believe any culture on the planet has the right to exterminate another culture as part of their "mandate."

Thr dropping of the nukes had always being a no in my mind. Mostly because you can look at it objectively; through pain and suffering. The nuclear attack is a long drawn out affair in terms of damage to the enemy. It's like a slow torture and that is clearly not humane.

 

[oralloy]

It was an indiscriminate attack in civilian areas which, as I say, is a war crime.

It was discriminate. War crime it may be. Doesn't necessarily mean it was wrong. The choice was between greater evils, the commanders in charge took the decision seriously and with careful thought.

Is it nice? No. Is it moral? Probably not. Given the situation would I order the attack? Yes.

A crime is by definition, wrong. This was a war crime in that it was intended to cause death and destruction among a large civilian population.

From my understanding of history Japan was likely to surrender in due course, the bombs were completely unnecessary.

The commanders in charge did not take the decision seriously and with careful thought.

Sure they did. However, most of their careful thoughts were about all the Americans who would die in the invasion of Japan.

We're talking about a group who thought the first nuclear tests may set the atmosphere alight destroying all mankind but went ahead anyway!

Actually, they knew that wouldn't happen.

---------------------------------------------

If they had tried to surrender then the war would be over before the bombs were dropped.

I see what you are getting at but do not say they tried to surrender because THEY DIDN'T. Plain and simple the US proposed demands, however unreasonable they were, and they said no. They were in no position to argue, but they chose too, and for what they had done I see why the US didn't give a shit about what they DEMANDED.

Yes the US were unreasonable, but it was Japan that said no.

What exactly was unreasonable about the US's position?

---------------------------------------------

Oh ok. So, the documents detailing their attempts to surrender in 1943 in the National Archives in Washington are clearly fakes then.

If they existed, they'd certainly be fakes.

I think the most likely explanation though is that there are no such documents to begin with.

Have you seen them yourself, or is this just something that you heard a vague rumor about?

A country isn't made of leaders, it's made of people, even if the majority of the leadership wanted to end it, as long as the war generals had enough followers, they would fight. We knew that some government officials wanted to surrender, but we didn't know how many civilians and soldiers were willing to surrender. Like I said, it wouldn't be the Japanese hoard, but there would be resistance from the common Japanese person. The number of resistors was unknown and our leaders went with what they thought was best at the time.

Read the report. It shows you exactly what we knew at the time. We knew that by May 1945 half the military wanted surrender, and the other half wanted unconditional surrender. That's what we knew. The military did not want to fight. Civilians, sure, who knows. But civilians aren't soldiers. The military did not have the resources to fight, and did not want to fight.

Actually, the Japanese Army wanted to fight to the death on Japan's beaches all the way up through both A-bombs, and they had a couple million troops in position all ready to do so.

The American casualty estimate was projected to be worse than what we later suffered in both the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined. It wasn't anything US leaders were looking forward to.

 

[Cortheya]

I think it needed to be done. A lot worse things would have happened after IMO so I think the ends justify the means